Recently, as one type of an electric vehicle, so-called an in-wheel motor vehicle has been developed, in which each of electric motors is arranged/installed in or in the neighborhood of each of wheels, and the wheels are directly driven by the electric motors. In the in-wheel motor vehicle, each of the electric motors is independently controlled from each other. That is, a power running control and a regenerative control are performed for each of the motors independently from the other motors. Accordingly, a driving torque and/or a braking torque of each of the wheels is independently controlled, so that a driving force and/or a braking force of the vehicle can be desirably controlled in response to a driving state/condition of the vehicle.
An apparatus which suppresses a change in a vehicle body behavior utilizing the independent control of the driving torque and/or the braking torque supplied to each of the wheels has been proposed. For example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (kokai) No. 2007-161032 discloses a driving apparatus which can suppress the change in the vehicle body behavior caused by a variation in a sprung (springing) weight of a suspension. This conventional driving apparatus is configured to determine a driving force distribution ratio for the front wheels and a driving force distribution ratio for the rear wheels when suppressing a bouncing of the vehicle, and to determine a driving force distribution ratio for the front wheels and a driving force distribution ratio for the rear wheels when suppressing a pitching of the vehicle.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (kokai) No. 2012-086712 discloses a braking/driving force control apparatus for a vehicle, which simultaneously controls a plurality of changes in behavior of a vehicle body. This conventional braking/driving force control apparatus is configured to calculate a target forward-and-backward driving force, a target roll moment, a target pitching moment, and a target yaw moment, and to calculate each driving force to be generated at each of four wheels such that those targets are simultaneously achieved/realized.